Poisons of French Liqueurs

Results Of An Investigation Undertaken
By The Alcohol Commission Of Paris In
The Interest Of Public Health

The alcohol
commission of Paris recently made an important report to the academy of
medicine of the same city with reference to spirituous liquors, the
report having been prepared by Professor J. V. Laborde. The academy
of medicine has not as yet voted on the conclusions of the commission,
and in the end parliament will have to decide, but the conclusion
arrived at seem to necessitate the suppression of all liqueurs and
aperitifs.

The
liqueur called absinthe is clearly at the head of the dangerous drinks,
and in the world of medicine it is called "the queen of poisons of this
sort." M. Girard states that absinthe is prepared by distillation of wormwood, green anise, and fennel, the distillation, which
only includes the essences of these plants, being colored by means of a
tincture composed of wormwood, hyssop, balm-mint, and lemon. These
introduce into the liqueur a new quantity of extracts and of fixed
principles of these plants, the resins, coloring matters, alkaloids,
etc. Thus the liqueur is poisoned first by its extracts and then by its
alkaloids without counting the alcohol.

These
different extracts have disastrous effects on the consumer, the essence
of wormwood producing a well characterized epileptic syndrome, the
other extracts being stupefactives. This last group, although they are
less harmful, make their additional contribution to the danger of
poisoning, but the principal evil is the wormwood. One should not
believe, however, that the other aperitifs are not poisonous, as for
examples, vermouth and bitters, the composition of bitters being of
extraordinary complexity. The vegetables employed are wormwood,
gentian, galonga, iris, angelica, calamus, sandalwood, orange,
quinine, cardamom, the number of extracts being at least twelve, and
that of the alkaloids and the glucosides at least thirteen. In this
mixture the wormwood, the aldehydes, the alkaloids, and the vegetable
glucosides are chiefly to be feared, as all of them are more or less
actively poisonous. The same conditions are present in the case of
vermouth with the additional danger that the latter contains a very
dangerous extract, the extract of meadow-wort or aldehyde salicylic,
and the prussic acid which always accompanies this chemical. Everybody
knows that a few drops of prussic acid produce instant death, and the
extract of meadow-wort, which was formerly distilled from the plant
itself, is today manufactured by chemistry under the name of aldehyde
salicylic.

Observations
made on drinkers of bitters and vermouth have confirmed in every way
the experiments made on animals by MM. Magan and Laborde, the patients
being afflicted with vertigo, trembling, epileptic crises, and
alcoholic dyspepsia. It follows that the drinking of vermouth and
bitters for the purpose of avoiding the dangers of absinthe is useless,
the same dangers being encountered for the very reason that one
believes that he may drink with perfect safety a greater quantity of
these aperitifs. To hasten intoxication certain distillers add to the
mixture the essence of wintergreen or methyl salicylate, a
"tetanisant," and thus one absorbs a mixture which only requires a
little arsenic to make the poison complete.

The
famous Chartreuse liqueur in no way escapes from the general rule,
being formed of genipi, balm- mint, hyssop, mint, angelica, arnica,
cinnamon, mace, coriander, aloes, clove, not less than thirteen
vegetable products among which we find the habitual procession of
extracts, alkaloids, and glucosides and the absinthol and the
absinthine furnished by the genipi, a group which constitutes from the
physiologic and poisonous standpoint stupefactive vegetable agents of
the first class. One should add to this liqueur, which is the oldest
and the most famous all those which come from the same products, Benedictine, Trappistine, false Chartreuse, etc..

Another
liqueur, vulneraire, includes eighteen different products, wormwood,
origan, rue, all of the products before mentioned, and sweet-basil,
calamint, lavender, marjoram, melilot, and rosemary besides. We should
also cite kummel, eau-de-vie de Dantzig, vespetre, raspail, and
gingembre. There are two liqueurs, however, which have such a
reputation for harmlessness and even a special reputation for assisting
digestion that they deserve special notice. These are anisette and
genievre. Anisette is composed of green anise, bitter almonds, tea,
laurel, tolu-balsam, ambrette, nutmeg, fennel, illicium anisatum, and
coriander. Thus we find in anisette prussic acid and benzoic aldehyde
without counting the other poisonous elements, the harmlessness being
altogether a deceptive one.

The genievre is formed of juniper berries
and of hops, and while this does not appear very dangerous the extract
of juniper berries exercises a predominant influence on the functional
sphere of the brain and slowly poisons the drinker.